Read and Reflect
Cooperative Learning/Grouping is a natural process in my courses because so much of what is accomplished requires a team effort. In my 16 years of teaching, I have tried different approaches to creating groups. However, in the last few years my approach with students has been to "play to each others' strengths." Once students learn a variety of skills, many often excel in some, but not in others. When I ask students to get in groups of 3-4 people to produce a video, I will tell them to find out who has stronger computer application skills, who has stronger writing skills, who enjoys photography, etc. From there, they are able to self-assign tasks. Truthfully, I have found that many cooperative groupings do not work despite what the research says. And in some cases, I can see just cause for grouping students homogeneously. When my son was in middle school, he had a teacher who told students she was going to group them by their letter grade in the class and that they had three days to work on their grades before the grouping took place. For him, this was an incentive to get his grades up in order to be grouped with other students who had A's or B's in the class. For the student achievers, I can understand why they wouldn't want to be grouped with students who have D's or E's. In general, these students do not pull their weight and they simply do not take on the philosophy of we all sink or swim together. Or, perhaps they do get the philosophy...they would just rather sink than work.
Apply and Reflect
I liked that I was able to add my feedback to a Google Doc. I also like that we are able to access computer lab sign ups through Google Docs. I do not know how else I would use this with my students.
Cooperative Learning/Grouping is a natural process in my courses because so much of what is accomplished requires a team effort. In my 16 years of teaching, I have tried different approaches to creating groups. However, in the last few years my approach with students has been to "play to each others' strengths." Once students learn a variety of skills, many often excel in some, but not in others. When I ask students to get in groups of 3-4 people to produce a video, I will tell them to find out who has stronger computer application skills, who has stronger writing skills, who enjoys photography, etc. From there, they are able to self-assign tasks. Truthfully, I have found that many cooperative groupings do not work despite what the research says. And in some cases, I can see just cause for grouping students homogeneously. When my son was in middle school, he had a teacher who told students she was going to group them by their letter grade in the class and that they had three days to work on their grades before the grouping took place. For him, this was an incentive to get his grades up in order to be grouped with other students who had A's or B's in the class. For the student achievers, I can understand why they wouldn't want to be grouped with students who have D's or E's. In general, these students do not pull their weight and they simply do not take on the philosophy of we all sink or swim together. Or, perhaps they do get the philosophy...they would just rather sink than work.
Apply and Reflect
I liked that I was able to add my feedback to a Google Doc. I also like that we are able to access computer lab sign ups through Google Docs. I do not know how else I would use this with my students.
(I added Jimmy Carter to the Excel Spreadsheet)
Here is an example of my own uploaded Google Doc.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9Dclw4ILo0nN2EzZWYyMzItZjMwYi00OTkzLWJjNDYtNmZhOWNkOThmZWY0&hl=en&authkey=CPPshsUE